Meiting (Christina) Zhang

This collection draws from my embodied experience within the Chinese school uniform system—a structure shaped by discipline, uniformity, order, and obedience. Boys and girls wear the same uniform, flattening visible differences. Through repetition, the body and behavior become regulated and internalized, forming habits that shape movement, posture, and emotion.

“The Silent Dwelling — Where Softness Yields” frames softness as resilience. Softness absorbs and redirects pressure from within the structure. Uniform graphics are extracted and reworked through wet- and needle-felted wool, knitwear, and organza, through which individuality emerges from within. Silhouettes create space from compression, reimagining the uniform as a structure of constraint in which personal experience reflects a shared lived condition. The uniform becomes both a constraint and a shared structure of growth, where personal experience expands into a collective condition. Garment becomes a structural container, creating space within the system where presence remains.

Creative Director & Producer: Meiting Zhang (Christina)
Designer: Meiting Zhang (Christina)
Model: Meiting Zhang (Christina)
Stylist: Meiting Zhang (Christina)
Makeup Artist: Baiyi Chen
Props & Set Styling: Meiting Zhang (Christina)
Dressing Assistant: Chuhan Huang (Jenny)
Photographer: Yui Lin
Videographer: Haler Feng
Photo Editor: Meiting Zhang (Christina)
Video Editor: Meiting Zhang (Christina)
Studio Support: Kevin Link & Link Studio
Production Support: Kelsey Butler
Video Sound: Chinese Radio Calisthenics Broadcast (for reference use)

Family Acknowledgment:
I’m deeply grateful to all my family members for their constant support and for making this collection with me. My mother and aunts worked with me on parts of the needle felting. My sister’s mother-in-law and her knitting community—Aunt Li, Aunt Xu, Aunt Yu, and Uncle Wang—contributed to the hand-knitted swatches and the final dress. The time we shared and the work we created together have become some of the most meaningful parts of this project and lasting memories in our family life.

Special Thanks: With gratitude to my thesis professors for their guidance and support throughout this journey —Professor Anna Lerner-Zwick & Jun JY Hong

Christina Zhang is a fashion designer and stylist from China with a cross-cultural background. Her work centers on sculptural silhouettes, high-saturation color, and material-driven collection development. She uses garments and color to construct visual narratives, with red as a constant that holds tension while creating continuity.

Her work is positioned between feminine and unisex, balancing control and release, minimal and maximal, and external structure with the internal self. Structure develops through volume and is deconstructed and reformed during the making process. Materiality drives her approach, expressed through hands-on fabric development and innovation, with sustainability considered throughout. Extending into styling and visual direction, her work maintains a consistent visual language across garments, the body, image, and narrative.

Email:
Instagram: @Christina.z.duo & c.z.studio04
LinkedIn: Christina Zhang